The Brass God

by K. M. McKinley

  THE BRASS GOD

  First published 2018 by Solaris

  an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,

  Riverside House, Osney Mead,

  Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

  www.solarisbooks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-78618-102-2

  Copyright © 2018 K. M. McKinley

  Cover art by Alejandro Colucci

  The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  CHAPTER ONE

  An Unwelcome Recovery

  A HARD LURCH startled Tuvacs to consciousness. Dark dreams chased him from a black hell. He scrabbled for purchase on the waking world. Tuvacs’ hands pressed against wood. He tried to sit, but his movements were restricted and sharp pain tore across his back. Muscles spasmed all over his body in a storm of cramps. His eyes were so dry his eyelids would not part, and when they did they scraped mercilessly. When finally he struggled his eyes open, he was forced to shut them against the sky. Weight dragged at his arms as he shielded his face. He wanted to vomit. Dazzled, his head spinning, he fell back onto the wood, his skull glancing on metal bars on the way. He lay on his side and waited for his senses to return, panting lightly to lessen his nausea. Rallying what few resources his body had to offer, he propped himself up on his elbows, and rested the back of his head against the bars to stop it falling down. The effort made him shake. The bars juddered with motion, each start bounced him against iron, but he was too dazed to move again. All that effort and he had not even managed to sit.

  “You’re awake, welcome back from the halls of the dead,” said someone in accented Low Maceriyan.

  Tuvacs squinted. After a time, his situation came into focus. From harsh daylight, a miserable scene resolved. Dejected prisoners sat shackled against iron bars in a cage mounted upon the back of a wagon, and he realised for the first time that his hands were manacled to a short chain like theirs. The uneven rocking called forth a harsh music of grinding wood and metal. The prisoners were silent. A light breeze could not overcome the hard, animal stink of the cage, made worse by the reek of the giant beast hauling the wagon. A boy, a young man he supposed, not much younger than himself, stared at him expectantly. Tuvacs stared back.

  “Wagon,” said Tuvacs. His voice came out a croak. “We’re on a wagon.” Figuring that out felt like a small triumph. He wanted to share. It was all he could do. Tuvacs closed his eyes. His head was full of wool and his thoughts struggled to fight their way through.

  A thin blanket half-covered him. He plucked at it with feeble fingers, pulling it further over his legs. It did little to keep off the freshness of the breeze. “I was warm in my sleep,” he said. He shivered. “I’m cold. Cold. I am so hungry.”

  “Yeah. We all are,” said the young man. “It’s freezing in this wagon at night, and what they do feed us you don’t want to eat. You’re one of the lucky ones. You were dying. Now you are not. There were dozens of men in this caravan who were in better shape than you, but who are dead now.”

  The light, filtered pinkly through Tuvac’s eyelids, went dark. He must have fallen asleep. When he opened them again he found the youth staring down at him, curly hair made a halo by the sun behind it. He shook Tuvacs’ shoulder. His chains rattled.

  “You must wake now. They didn’t kill you. They might if you don’t show some strength.”

  “Who are they?” said Tuvacs, sincerely wishing the youth would leave him alone. “I feel like I’m dead anyway,” he said miserably.

  “You are not dead, not yet, though you nearly were.” The youth was angry. “I’ve seen lots of people die. Be grateful you’re not among them.”

  “Where am I?”

  “You are a prisoner of the modalmen.”

  The youth helped Tuvacs up into a sitting position. The skin on his back stretched painfully, like it might tear.

  “Gods.” He couldn’t suppress a whimper.

  “Your back was hurt. The wounds were deep, they got infected. You have been locked in a fever. None of us thought you would survive.” The young man spoke at a normal volume, but with the others being silent it sounded dangerously loud. Their fellow prisoners gave them looks that held more than a modicum of fear. The young man ignored them.

  Tuvacs screwed his eyes up and looked past the bars.

  Under skies of perfect blue, a caravan rolled across the Black Sands. Ahead and behind, cage wagons moved steadily in single file. Some were furnished with bars made of bone instead of metal. Each was pulled by a massive creature. Reddish manes crowned their long necks, spines and shoulders, elsewhere their skin was bare and the colour of cooling charcoal. Grooves and whorls marked their flesh, glimmering faintly with an inner light that could not compete with the sun. They plodded with their wide heads low, eyes and nostrils half-shut against the blowing sand. High shoulders over long forelimbs sloped down to massively muscled hindquarters, where two further pairs of legs were grouped apart from the fore pair.

  “How long?” croaked Tuvacs.

  The young man shrugged despondently. His attitude was an odd mix of defiance and resignation. “Weeks, definitely. Months, maybe. I’ve lost track of time. Got worse things to think about, like who is going to get eaten next. You should have died a while ago. They ate most of the rest of the injured. Beats me why they kept you alive. There’s something going on here with you. Some of the others think they’re testing us, keeping you alive.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I think a man will say anything to remove the randomness from his life. The worst seems a little better when there’s a reason behind it.”

  Tuvacs pushed himself more upright. Pain raced across his back, hammered behind his temples. Everything hurt.

  “You nearly died,” said the young man again.

  “I’m thirsty.”

  “I would give you water, but there is none.”

  “Who treated me?” asked Tuvacs.

  “Me, mostly. But that one there saved your life.” The youth nodded toward an old man sleeping against the bars. Tuvacs recognised Metruzzo. He didn’t know him well, but he had been on the railhead staff manifest, a minor magister with the profession of surgeon-barber and an unfortunate gambling habit.

  Tuvacs rolled up the arms of a shirt he didn’t recognise. Sure enough, magisters marks had been painted onto his skin, in his own blood, by the looks of it.

  “It was just you two?”

  The young man shrugged. “No one else helped. No one cares. This is a cage full of islands of misery, every one alone. I fed you. Cleaned you, gave you water when we had it. The modalmen insisted. We were starving. The others hate you for the waste. You were raving at times. You kept us from sleeping.”

  The other prisoners watched him in silent hostility.

  Tuvacs examined what he was wearing. Patches of his britches were thick with dried blood, and his jacket and shirt had gone. The shirt was two sizes too big with a hole punched through over the heart. He didn’t have to ask where it had come from.

  “Your clothes were ruined, the back was all ripped open, stiff with dried blood. Metruzzo had to cut them away.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Tuvacs. “They are just clothes, and this shirt is better than my old one.”

  “Don’t you remember what happened? We’ve been in here together for a long time. Some
times, you seemed lucid.”

  Tuvacs shook his head. All his body was wasted. His neck felt as thin and brittle as a chicken bone. “Thank you.”

  “I had no choice,” said the young man. “They wanted you alive. They made that clear to me. It would have been my head if you died. Somebody would have been made to, if it weren’t me. The modalmen would have made it happen. Their leader speaks a bit of Maceriyan. Brauctha. Nasty bastard.” The boy rolled his ‘r’s heavily; he was Mohaca like Tuvacs, but not from the city. A country boy.

  Tuvacs looked around at the others in the cage. He thought it likely most of them would have let him die even if forced to care. There were easy ways to finish a dying man. He would have been disgusted, but he honestly didn’t know if he would have done better.

  There was no way out. Either side of the caravan went the modalmen themselves. Most were mounted on the same breed of beast as pulled the carriages. From poles attached to the back of their high saddles, pennants decorated with barbarous writing snapped in the breeze. A few of the modalmen walked alongside the cages, massive weapons cradled in their four arms. They wore heavy boots and thick trousers. Their heads were covered against the sun with scarves, and so Tuvacs could not see how their faces were, but their torsos were naked, covered in the same grooved spirals as those on their beasts, and their skin was grey-black also. One trudged past, inches away, head bowed in thought, covering the ground easily despite the slowness of his stride. Tuvacs was astounded by the modalman’s size. He was bigger than a Torosan godling and more heavily muscled. Another kind of six-legged creature walked obediently at the warrior’s side, head broad and short like that of a hunting dracon, but the snout was capped with a horny beak from which protruded glaring fangs. It had none of the reddish fur of its cousin species, but its skin was the same black, and also deeply carved with spirals. The modalman ignored the prisoners, but the eyes of the hunting creature fixed themselves on Tuvacs. It bared the full length of its teeth, showing bright pink gums, and let out a deep growl.

  “By the gods,” Tuvacs said.

  “It does no good to pray to them,” said the youth. “I’ve tried.”

  Tuvacs managed a smile. His lips cracked. “The bastards wouldn’t listen even had old Iapetus not kicked them out.”

  The boy grinned at him. “You are Karsan? You spoke mostly that while you were ill. I do not know much of the language.”

  Tuvacs shook his head. “Mohaca.”

  The boy sat up, eyes bright with pleasure. “Then that is something good. I am pleased to meet you, my fellow countryman!” said the boy, switching from Low Maceriyan to Mohacin. “What is your name?’

  “Alovo Tuvacs,” said Tuvacs.

  “I am Rafozak, friends call me Rafozo.”

  “As they might call me Tuvaco.”

  They touched their hearts and shook hands in the way of their people. Tuvac’s hand felt heavy on the end of his arm. He was alarmed at how feeble he had become.

  “It always pays to have a friend, Rafozo, especially in bad times like these.” Tuvacs affected a calm he did not feel.

  “Metruzzo said you came from Railhead,” said Rafozo.

  “From the rail head. The end of the line, not the town,” said Tuvacs. “Stupid name to call the town, though I suppose Railhead was at the head of the rails once.” In the cage wagon talking of towns, places where people went freely about their lives, seemed ridiculous. The boy was impressed nevertheless. A new light came into his eyes.

  “So you’ve been out here working?”

  “Yes.” Tuvacs frowned. “You weren’t taken from the desert?”

  Rafozo smiled shyly. “My life was very boring. Always, I said to my father that I wished to work the glimmer, but he said no, and I was a dutiful son. Now I have my wish for adventure, and I regret it. I was taken from a caravan headed out from Horoecz over the Kulzanki Pass to Farside to trade. We were attacked as we came down to the grasslands from the mountains. My father sold grain to the farmers that way. He’s dead,” said the boy matter-of-factly. “He died defending our drays.”

  “Kulzanki Pass?” said Tuvacs. “That’s nearly two thousand miles from the Gates of the World, and far from the desert too.”

  “Farside is broad there,” Rafozo nodded, and lowered his voice. “Some of the others here are from even further afield. Modalmen have been raiding over the mountains, sometimes deep into Farside, always in small groups.”

  “They’d be seeking to avoid retaliation by attacking at once,” said Tuvacs tiredly. His throat burned with thirst. “Small groups move quickly.”

  “Do you remember what happened to you?” asked Rafozo.

  “I was at the edge of camp when they attacked,” said Tuvacs quietly. “I got away, on the back of a dray. Something caught us.”

  “Your back was torn up by one of their hounds. I am amazed you survived.”

  “I was alone?”

  “You were alone.”

  Images flashed into Tuvacs’ mind. Julion, speared like a lizard. A burst of flame from the construction camp, and Boskovin, stupid Boskovin making a pass at him and getting riled when Tuvacs did not respond favourably. Boskovin was pitiable, and had otherwise been good to him. The modalmen had killed him. Tuvacs’ face fell.

  “I am sorry,” said Rafozo.

  Tuvacs looked away. The images lingered in his mind. He was glad his voice was already a wreck, it covered its breaking.

  “Remind me to thank Metruzzo,” said Tuvacs. From the relatively clean state of his clothing, Tuvacs guessed Rafozo had helped him relieve himself. Sitting in his own shit until they got to wherever they were going would have been unbearable. He was more grateful for this preservation of his dignity than anything else.

  Thinking about toileting brought on an urgency to Tuvacs’ bladder. “I need to piss.” He stood gingerly, wincing as he hooked his braces over his shoulders—at least he still had those.

  “Your strength returns!” said Rafozo.

  “Not really,” said Tuvacs. He gripped the bars. Black spots danced across his vision, and he had to close his eyes for a moment. The rocking of the wagon made the weakness of his legs worse. It took a few minutes before he trusted them with his weight.

  “I suppose I just point it out into the air?”

  “That’s the way. We made a space for those who need to crap.” Tuvacs pointed out the one spot at the back of the wagon where no one was sitting. The bars were too tightly spaced to stick a backside through, and the boards there were thick with matter.

  “We shovel it out after—”

  “I understand,” said Tuvacs. He took several attempts to unbutton his britches flap. He aimed out between the bars and let out a long stream of dark urine that splattered loudly on the sand. The modalmen ranged alongside glanced at him, then went back to staring at the ground.

  “The modalmen don’t seem very interested in us,” said Tuvacs, doing himself up again.

  “Most aren’t,” said Rafozo. He became wary, and dropped his voice. “There’s one who is the most dangerous, worse even than Brauctha, and he is interested in us, but only for hurting. We call him Golden Rings, for the jewellery he wears in his face. He hurts men for pleasure. It is his job to select the ones who will be taken out, and they do not return. Mostly they take the weak, but some they let live that you’d think they’d kill, like you, no offence.”

  “There is none to be taken,” said Tuvacs.

  “They’ve killed some strong men too, and...” he became downcast. “And there were a few women and children. They were the first to go, along with the old. There were fifty of us in here to begin with. Those that showed their fear openly were taken early on, after the women and the children. Those that go mad are carried off. Men go mad all the time in the cages. It is impossible to predict who will break next. The hardest of men fail under such pressure. When I was taken, there was so little space in the cage we could barely breathe. Several men died from thirst and exhaustion in those awful first weeks,
until the choosing began.” He sat back. “Now we all have plenty of room.”

  “I survived that?” said Tuvacs.

  “Yes.” Rafozo dropped his voice. “They are eaten, the ones they take. They eat them, and they also feed them to us. I warn you, Tuvaco. Check your food. The modalmen’s broth is not always made of good meat.”

  Rafozo looked frightened.

  Tuvacs glanced out at the modalmen trudging alongside the cage. “Is it safe to talk?”

  “The rest of the modalmen do not care as long as we make little noise in the day. Not many of them know the tongues of the west. At night it is different, then they do not allow a single word.”

  “Nobody else is speaking,” said Tuvacs. Eerie silence punctuated his and Rafozo’s conversation. The modalmen and their beasts were quiet, and the desert was empty of life beside the caravan.

  “They are in despair, and most do not speak Maceriyan. Karsarin is unknown to them,” said Rafozo. “Two are our countrymen.” He jerked his head down toward the front of the cage. “I talk with them, but they are frightened, and will not speak much. The rest are from everywhere, up and down the mountains. They won’t talk anyway. Golden Rings has snatched out men who speak overmuch, or laugh. He hates laughter. Fulx there, he is Marovesi.” He nodded at a sleeping man. “He used to talk. He doesn’t any more. Dunets is the only one who says much, but he’s a shithead, a bully who will steal your shirt if you let him. He talked one man into biting out his own wrists because Dunets wanted his boots,” he said, pointing at a second sleeping man, better fed and dressed than the others. “The rest are the same as you find anywhere, some good, some bad.”

  Tuvacs took a closer look at his fellow prisoners. He counted twenty-three, many with facial features and modes of dress unfamiliar to him.

  Despite the disappearance of the weakest, the people in the cage appeared well fed, if dirty. His own thinness was unusual.